"Bomber Memories"
October 1, 2, 4, 5 & 6, 1998
October 1, 1998
Lloyd Swain (66)
Incredible to read all of your messages and notes.
Indeed we are all grown up now aren't we? The sins of our fathers are discussed with many and varied viewpoints.. What a Forum!!!
Love all the recollections. A wealth of information and you are all to be congratulated.
Me... well... I liked band... football with Mr. Rish... Jim Loss in the drama department... plays and musicals... Zips.... And my 58 Vauxhall Super Victor.....
Those really were wonderful days...
Lloyd Swain
Micky Hemphill (66)
Bombers:
Trying to remember the past few days of mail, and the past thirty years.......
Jim Ard would have graduated with us (66), he moved to Michigan? and eventually played pro basketball.
Rick Maddy: I too played baseball for Mr. Fowler, and caught Mike, and Chris Fliescher and remember having a very sore left palm and many bruises. I was never a quick learner.
I do have such fond memories of the times in Richland.
Micky Hemphill
Margaret Hartnett (72)
Re: Teresa LaMear Edie (80)
You asked if anyone remembered the sand dunes - of course. And my recollection is that they are near/part of the Juniper Forest. I suppose there were many reasons to be out there, it was an extremely popular place to go in the early 70s to smoke pot and be silly away from our parents' suspicious eyes. I also remember that we often found parachute silk out there. One of the rumors being that special forces and potential astronaut types jumped out there to see how they faired in an environment as homey as the moon. Could have been true or just more tall tales, in any event we had a lot of fun.
October 2, 1998
Joe Largé (68)
TO: Earl Bennett (63)
Yes, it is Gyre with a "Y". My tiping isent waht it uzed 2 bee. I Love that poem! I believe the Jabberwok was written because Lewis Carroll was a mathematics wiz and I believe that there is actually a mathematical formulation to it. (I THIMK!)
TO: Patty de la Bretonne (65)
I LOVED the Standard School Broadcasts. You are aware, aren't you that Carmen Dragon's son is "Captain" Dragon, of the old Captain and Tenielle days. I am with the (Olympia) Capitol Area Concert Band and we play Carmen Dragon's works from time-to-time.
I agree, I would like to see things that UNITE us Alumni, rather than those things that DIVIDE us. There are a great deal of painful subjects out there in the world without having to drive nails into our collective thumbs.
All of this is part of our past, good as well as bad. However, rehashing them is not going to change things. We can learn from the past so that whatever mistakes will not be recreated. As much as we would or would not like to, changing the past is not a "Human" ability.
By-the-way, Does anyone remember Mr. Hughes, band teacher from Carmichael Jr. High? Wonder where he's at or if he's still alive.
Joe Largé
October 4, 1998
Millie Finch Gregg (54)
You know I have been thinking (that's dangerous), but we could call our growing up here as "It's A Good Life". We had wonderful childhood, as shared by all of you, with our memories. We are unique and should be very proud to say we are from Richland, WA.
I remember girls basketball (yuk!!) Dumb that we couldn't cross the center line.
Millie Finch Gregg
Barbara Chandler (59)
All of you have reved up some memories for me. What I've told my kids and remember with such fondness are the wonderful summers in Richland.
The treks to bateman island. Those of us (not me) who had boats would take them out and water ski, build bonfires, drink beer, neck, you know the wonderful times of teenage-hood. I remember water sking one day with a crowd, the driver went really near the shore, swerved and I went flying onto the beach!!!! Wasn't hurt at all, just the breath knocked out of me, but was really exciting.
I also remember swimming in the flumes at night. Climbing up, lowering down and swimming (well, not swimming, the current did the work) down to the end, getting out, walking back and doing it all over again. Lots of kids and lots of fun.
Also, I worked at Zips Drive In one winter. Got fired because one night when it was really snowy and cold I was working alone. Someone came in to order something and went directly to the stalls out back? Well, no way was I going to get out in that freezing weather to take an order! Hah!! Whoever it was reported me and fired I was. Well deserved, but funny how that is my only history of fired-dom and it is a cherished memory. Go figure. Also, other memories of Zips from Col Hi when a bunch of us would hop in Linda Neeley's convertible, bomb down the hill and get FF/coke/burger at lunch time, smoke some cigs and get back to class in an hour. I remember when news of my dad's death reached me at 16 (folks separated and he was in Chicago), went with friends riding around, crying and I remember stopping at Standard station for a hair down, throwing cold water in my face, trying to get it together. My friends were so special, they helped me through so much. Carole Wickstrom Tadlock (59), Linda Neeley Quillen (59), Marylou Loman (sorry, Marylou, you've always been Loman), Molly Turner Milner (58), Diane Goodenow Rhodes (59), Sunny (Hyatt) Smith -- Sunny died many years ago, in the 70's... so dang many through the years.
Thank you all for doing this, for giving some time to relive some wonderful times, not that they all were, but many of you have expressed how special and unique our town was.
I just remember back to a time when safety (other than our own induced danger by wild rides around the bypass, etc) was never in question. We'd walk across town at night, no problem, leave our houses and cars unlocked, no problem. Another time but one I am so grateful I shared with all of you.
Barbara Chandler
Sandy Carpenter
McDermott (61)
Re: Larry Reid's question: "Does anyone remember the school boy patrol".
Yes, I do. I remember, as a girl, having to avoid a certain street crossing because you were sweet on the school patrol boy! AND, maybe your school didn't have patrol girls, but Jefferson School DID! I was one of them. However, we were not trusted with the street crossings, our stations of patrol duty were the entrances of the school. But, believe me, we felt just as important as you boys! We got to keep everyone out of the school until the doors opened for everyone. I can remember my biggest challenge was from a little boy who REALLY thought he was a Marsian. He told everyone that his parents were from Mars, and he would actually cry when you tried to talk him out of it. I wonder what ever happened to that little guy. Does anyone remember him? He made quite an impression on all of us.
Sandy Carpenter McDermott
Jim Hamilton (63)
Gregor Hanson (65) noted that Jim Adrian and Jack (Turkey) Kern were a couple of prodigious home run hitters. In actuality it was Jim Adian and Jerry Kern, when they both played for Spudnut Shop in the National League. I've got a lousy memory for numbers, but me thinks that Pook Smith probably served up most of them when he pitched for Thrifty Drug.
A Little League aside. After Kirkland National won the World Series some years back, it was noted that they were the seond oldest organized "Little League" in the state of Washington. The oldest was Kirkland National.
As I recall the National teams were Spudnut, Thrifty Drug, Auto Supply and N&H. I recall those itchy,scatchy wool uniforms and the wool hats that would shrink and bleed when they got wet. Times have changed, but I really think that those old Dawson Richards, NBC and Spudnut teams could play with any I've seen in the 40 years since (hope they don't edit this out for being too contoroversial). [Very funny, Hamilton!!! - Ed]
Found a couple of tennis racket covers from Jim & Jakes and Perc Locey. Were there ever anyother sporting good stores before them and BB&M.
jimbeaux
Patty de la Bretonne
(65)
TO: Jimmy Fleming (65)
I remember also when hostess cupcakes went from 10 to 12 cents. wow....
John Allen (66)
The Bomber teams of '63 and '64 were topping the hundred point mark with some regularity, however the team in 1966 scored not 103, but 129 points against Grandview. This was in a game that lasted not 48 minutes like NBA games, where 129 points would still be an above average total for most teams, but rather in a game that lasted only 32 minutes.
John Allen
Donna Seslar White (68)
TO: Larry Reid (68)
Just had to comment about there not being any patrol girls back in Marcus Whitman. I was one of them! We were assigned to the doors of the school, though. I was at the kindergarten, first grade, etc. doors. We would keep an eye on the kids on the play ground plus keep them out of the building until time to go in. Pretty important job! :) I found my hat from those days a few years ago. I think I was supposed to turn it in but guess I never did. Just remember being really proud. I think I was even the captain, but not sure! Can't remember who was with me.
Did you ever have Mrs. McElligott? Not sure of the spelling. I remember her school store she always had in her classroom. Her students got to run it. It was great for second graders to learn to make change and wait on customers. Mrs. Sterling was my absolute favorite teacher (first grade). Mina Jo Gerry Payson talked a while back about Mrs. Matthews. She was cool, too. Miss Bowles in 6th grade.
Enough of Marcus Whitman memories.
October 5, 1998
Joan Eckert Sullens (51)
In reading through all of our memories reminded me what made Richland so unique to me and so many others who came during the 40's. And that was our diversity. We were from everywhere, USA! We came from New York State where we were required to wear skirts, long stockings, slacks and ties for the boys. I remember being so amazed meeting some of my fellow sixth graders from down south who arrived in jeans and sandals. We had all kinds of accents... we were a melting pot. We learned so much about America's diverse cultures those first years. It was great. Because of the nature of the "business" there, we had great security and were allowed tremendous freedom to roam. We virtually had no cliques. We really were very lucky to have grown up there. But I was like everyone else - could hardly wait to leave all that sage and sand and the usual "nothing to do" all teens seem to feel!
Joan Eckert Sullens
Ralph Myrick (51)
The 40's grads should remember the l948 flood we had. I worked for Dick Vogt at the Village Food Store then. The only way out of Richland was through the area, and no one could trespass then, and to Benton City and over the Horse Heaven Hills. The only way food could be brought in for the stores was by plane. That is when they decided to put up the dike. Also, that was about the time we had that big wind. I lived at 325 Rossell Ave. then. As we were watching the wind tear things up, we saw Bob Watts' roof being lifted off his prefab and laid in the front yard. Our roof was lifted about three inches. We had to have maintenance come and tie it back down. George Parrot was trying to get up Lee Blvd. hill by pushing his bike. That wind picked up small pieces of gravel and cut him up pretty good. That last time I heard of George Parrot, he was running a service station in Kettle Falls near Spokane.
You know another memory that was stirred in my senior mind that wasn't planned at all. I don't know if God had anything to do with it or what. When we came to Richland in November of 1944, my sister and I went half day to Sacajawea until the second semester of l945. Marcus Whitman was opened and we transferred there. Now here is the ironic thing. I left Richland in l958 and went to New Mexico. Worked for Southern Union Gas Co. until l960, got married to my present wife Judy and enrolled in teacher education at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. NM. Got my first degree and taught for 3 years in Aztec, NM. I then went back to ENMU and got a master's degree. Moved to Ojai, CA and lasted one year. I came back to Richland for the l968-69 school year. Started at Jefferson Elem., then went to Tapteal in W. Richland. Then in l990 I didn't like was happening to education in the classroom and taught PE for 6 tenths f a day and classroom for 4 tenths. I got a chance to go full time PE at Marcus Whitman and Sacy and took it. That is where I retired from. Started and Marcus and Sacy and retired for Marcus and Sacy. What a plan that certainly wasn't of my doing.
Mary Kay Mitchell Coates (52)
Yes, the girl patrol was a very big thing back as far as 1947-48, perhaps even earlier at Sacajawea. Lilly Peterson was principal and allowed the girls to patrol the doors and hallways. At the end of my 8th grade year, the PTA held an awards ceremony in the gym. Jack Holden (52) and I were each awarded a certificate and a small medal for outstanding patrol boy and girl, Nancy Long (52) and Jean Gire (52) were given scholarship awards, Jack Dawson (52) citizenship, Robert Harding (52) athletics, and Barbara Hughes (52) music. I have an old photo of all of us capturing the glory of that moment. It was taken by Robley Johnson. I believe at that time he was the only commercial photographer in town. When Marlin Studios opened in the uptown about 1949 or 50, my friend Vera Rodda (52) and I took advantage of their opening offer of a free "glamor" setting. We both ended up looking like we were 10 years older than we actually were. We hardly recognized our "glamorous" selves!!
The quonset huts at old Sacy are certainly a memorable part of my 6 thru 8 grade years, as well as the "shifts" where we had morning and afternoon classes. I was an P.M. shift and those hutments were like little furnaces in the heat of the afternoon!! We were allowed to put up a swamp cooler and we thought that helped. In all reality, it only made it muggy, but we had the illusion of coolness. Some of my friends and I made curtains for the windows of our hut to give it a more "homey" atmosphere. Mrs. Grace Brown & Mrs. Cottrill were a couple of the teachers that endured teaching in those hotboxes!!
Kay Mitchell Coates
Dick Nelson (59)
Who remembers water skiing behind a 49 pontiac in West Richland? I know two guys who do! or should!
Dick Nelson
Betsy Fox Vance (63)
I am not sure if I am sending this to the right place. I graduated in 1963.... and used to write for the Sandstorm. (Received my first very sweet and innocent kiss in the Sandstorm darkroom)
Does anyone remember David's Shoes in the uptown -- and putting your feet in that machine that let you look at your bones in your foot (also emitting a zillion rads of radiation in the process..) but, it was fun to check out our skeletons. And watching them fry the doughnuts at the spudnut shop... and all those ski trips to Spout Springs... meeting at BB&M every Saturday morning to catch the bus.
Betsy Fox Vance
Harvey Irby (64)
My dad's parents had a gas station and farm on the old River Road between The Y and Kennewick about where Kennewick built a sewage treatment plant in what is now Columbia Park (the plant is now gone). They were badly flooded in the floods of '48 and '49. The Corps of engineers bought the place in the early '50's for the lake of McNary Dam. They then bought a farm up on 27th Street south of Kennewick. I can still remember the Welch's Grape juice vineyards going up the hill from Vineyard Street to 27th. I think the vines got some disease in the 50's and were all destroyed.
I can also remember the mint farms in the Kennewick Highlands. During the mint harvest, they boiled the plants in the fields to make mint oil which made the whole country- side smell of mint. When the wind blew the right direction, I think you could even smell it in Richland. Again, I think the plants contracted some sort of disease and the mint farms moved up around Othello in the '50's. Mint is still my favorite flavor.
Harvey Irby
Joe Largé (68)
TO: Margaret Hartnett (72)
I also remember the Juniper forest and the Astronauts. They used the forest for Desert Survival training. We were all so "impressed" that the ASTRONAUTS would come here to little ol' Tri-Cities!
Joe Largé
October 6, 1998
Evelyn Meyer Crowder
(46)
Reply to: Betty Johnson Bennett (46)
About the little cedar chest boxes, our class didn't receive them. I use to see them in mags and wish I had one (I'm not sure why), and when our daughter graduated from high school, she received two of them -- each from a different furniture company so I finally got mine --- it is stored away someplace.
Evelyn
Marilyn Peddicord
Whitley (53)
Speaking of girl's Basketball - I still have my letter and letter sweater - imagine earning a letter without ever crossing the center line - Also, does anyone else remember the Jantzen sweaters and matching socks and the saddle shoes we all loved to wear?
Barbara Seslar
Brackenbush ('60)
Why do I remember horseback riding was $5 an hour? I've seen several mention that it was $1 an hour. Am I wrong? Or did price increase that much?
Regarding the little cedar chests given out by Bell Furniture. I received one in 1960, when I graduated, but over the years it was destroyed or lost. I was delighted to find another one at Kennewick Furniture about 3 years ago for about $5 I think.
Does anyone remember the Jell-O lemon pudding that used to have the little capsule that would burst after temperature rose to a boil? I loved that sudden burst of lemon fragrance. The lemon Jell-O is just as good today, I think, but it no longer includes the little capsule.
Sandy Carpenter
McDermott (61)
Re: Ralph Myrick (51) comments: I, too, remember the 1948 Flood. It was when I was just beginning Kindergarten at Jefferson School. We had moved to the new "R" house on Davison Avenue across from the school. During the days and nights they built the dike, there wasn't much sleep to be had... they used our backyard for roadway to get sandbag trucks to the dike, and our front yard for the returning trucks. I remember that there was constant sand blowing; sometimes you could hardly see the trucks a few feet away. But what a lot of noise, dust and confusion... did save our town, though, so it was all worth it! In later years my brother and I enjoyed that dike along with our friends, and would ride our bikes on it to get to Riverside Park (now Howard Amon Park)... what an adventure it was.
Cheers...
Sandy Carpenter McDermott
Earl Bennett (63)
Jim Fleming - Was the grocery store at Westgate an IGA? I vaguely remember working there briefly, and a cafe near the West end of the strip. As for carnivals, I remember winning a cake in a cake walk at Jason Lee, but not much else. And science fairs: I don't remember an award, but my best project ever was at Chief Jo, 8th or 9th grade, when I put together a cloud chamber that revealed the vapor trails of cosmic rays as they passed through the CO2 boiling off the dry ice in the chamber. The satisfaction of doing a good job is what made it memorable. I seem to recall one of my sisters being disturbed at the thought of that much "stuff" penetrating our bodies all the time!
Mike Franco - I don't know about a 103 basketball score against Grandview in '66, as I was stationed on Crete in the Air Force by then - in fact, I don't remember that Grandview was large enough to play in the AAA league, but hey, I've forgotten more significant things than that. I should remember Grandview, though, since I was very attracted to a girl from Grandview I met through the church youth group.
Later,
ecb3
Kathy Staley (65)
After having read so many memories, and they have been great!! what with Muscles, the fog machines, little league baseball, CC Andersons, and especially the Spudnut Shop, I have one that I have not seen yet. And that is the burning of all the town's Christmas trees in a huge bon fire!! What a gathering that always turned out to be!!
Kathy Staley
William L. Porter (68)
I remember being a Patrol Boy. I was in Mr. Brightenfeldt's 6th grade class. Mr. Brightenfeldt seemed to be graduating grades with us, since the year before he was teaching 5th grade. I don't remember who was the sgt. from our class, but getting out of class early to suit up and get to our posts more than made up for coming home late afterwards. It was a prestigious assignment. I also remember the flag football games between the sixth grade classes. Kris "Crazy legs" Boness was our secret weapon. Kris was skinny and fast back then,... uh, enough said, I don't need a ticket driving thru Ritzville.
William L. Porter
